Otemon Gate: The Great Hand of the Shogun's Fortress
Why is it significant?
Cross the wide stone bridge spanning the outer moat and approach Otemon Gate, the principal ceremonial entrance to Edo Castle, the legendary citadel of the Tokugawa shoguns.
Key Facts
| Place | Otemon Gate: The Great Hand of the Shogun's Fortress |
|---|---|
| Address | 1-1 Chiyoda, Chiyoda City, Tokyo 100-0001, Japan |
| Geo Coordinates | 35.68600, 139.76000 |
| Part of Walk | Tokyo: Imperial Palace & Marunouchi, The Samurai Stronghold |
| Generated | Generated |
Cross the wide stone bridge spanning the outer moat and approach Otemon Gate, the principal ceremonial entrance to Edo Castle, the legendary citadel of the Tokugawa shoguns. Otemon literally translates to the Great Hand Gate, signifying that this was the formal front entrance through which visiting daimyo lords, samurai delegations, and foreign envoys passed to seek audience with the military ruler of Japan. Today, it serves as the main public portal into the East Gardens of the Imperial Palace. The sheer thickness of the masonry walls exudes military invincibility, calculated to deter even the most determined samurai rebel armies.
Notice the ingenious defensive design known as a Masugata, or square box gate. You first pass through a smaller outer wooden gate, only to find yourself trapped inside a fortified stone courtyard overlooked by high parapets, forced to make a sharp ninety-degree right turn to face the colossal inner gate. Any samurai attackers breaching the first gate would be trapped in a deadly crossfire of arrows and matchlock muskets from hidden embrasures above.
Look closely at the massive timbers of the inner gate: clad in thick, blackened iron plates and studded with heavy iron rivets, these doors were designed to resist battering rams and flaming arrows. Above the gate sits a heavy timber watchtower, or watariyagura, where samurai guards kept round-the-clock watch over the castle approach, ready to drop heavy stones and scalding liquids onto any attackers attempting to breach the iron gates.
Look at the giant polished andesite stone block just inside the courtyard: known as the Sado Stone, it was quarried on Sado Island and transported across the sea by the Maeda clan as an extravagant display of feudal loyalty and engineering power to impress the shogun.
Step through the inner portal and walk past the guardhouse toward the sprawling wooden veranda of Hyakunin-bansho.